imoca 60 sailboat data

IMOCA 60 Boat Build Details Finally Revealed

11th Hour Racing is proud to be the Title Sponsor of  11th Hour Racing Team . Check out the latest news below.

11th Hour Racing Team is one step closer in our ambition to win The Ocean Race 2022-23 with the announcement of the design and build of a brand new IMOCA 60 taking place in Brittany, France.

We have brought together three of the most experienced and successful offshore racing expert organizations to conceptualize, design and build this new boat for the Team.

Our designer,  Guillaume Verdier  is one of yacht racing’s most prolific naval architects in the sport with America’s Cup winners, Ultime record-breakers and was involved in the design of four of the last five  Vendée Globe  winners. Verdier brings together the very best minds in the offshore sailing world to work collaboratively across all areas from structural design to routing, and engineering to computational fluid dynamics.

Our strategic partner for the technical and performance aspects of the new boat build is  MerConcept , led by offshore racing veteran François Gabart who won the Vendée Globe in 2012. MerConcept, an Entreprise à Mission [purpose-led company] more recently led the build of Apivia – the latest generation foiling IMOCA, which is a front-runner for the upcoming single-handed round the world race.  A group of nearly a dozen engineers, designers and analysts are working on the analytics and data for the performance analysis of the new design.

The boat is being built by  CDK Technologies , based out of Lorient and Port-la-Forêt, France, who have constructed many of the leading offshore sailing boats in the sport, including the last three winners of the Vendée Globe and the largest racing trimaran ever built, the Maxi Banque Populaire V.

Charlie shared what inspired this next step in our team journey, “When we learned that The Ocean Race was going to be open to a development class we jumped at the opportunity. We’ve done two laps of the planet now in the one-design Volvo Ocean 65s and are very excited to take this next step in the Race with a custom design and build process.”

Our team CEO, Mark Towill agrees, “The challenge that we have in front of us now is taking an IMOCA 60 and turning it into a fully crewed Ocean Race boat and integrating sustainability at every step in the process. It’s something that no-one’s ever done before and that to me is the most exciting part of our campaign.”

The Ocean Race co-owner Johan Salen spoke in July 2018 about his vision for teams to embrace the design challenge. “By opening the next race to the IMOCA 60 and the VO65, we intend to attract  the very best sailors , designers and teams in the world to take up the challenge of competing in the pinnacle fully-crewed around the world race. The introduction of the IMOCA 60 brings a design and engineering element to the race that keeps us at the cutting edge of technology and performance and will be appealing to the most competitive performers in our sport.”

The boat is being built to fit The Ocean Race’s unique racecourse with up to 10 stopovers (including two additional equator crossings with a leg to Asia), which includes more upwind and tight-reaching sailing angles. Additionally, it was designed to meet the strict rules incorporating a crew of five (four male, one female) and one Onboard Reporter (OBR), and a heading-only autopilot. The new 11th Hour Racing Team IMOCA 60 will be the first of its kind in the Class.

Sounds relatively easy? Well not really! Designing the new 11th Hour Racing Team boat has provided some real challenges. Charlie explained more, “IMOCA 60s are typically built for single-handed racing therefore teams are allowed a smart autopilot which uses additional boat data, including wind angle and heel of the boat, to help keep the solo sailors on track. These boats are built with a tiller-system and sailors hand-steer less than 5% of the time, and are reliant on the autopilot for the rest.

“Whereas in The Ocean Race we are restricted to a heading-only autopilot which is not as accurate so it’s more effective to hand-steer our boat 100% of the time. As a result we have had to design our boat with twin steering wheels. A lot of thought and time went into the cockpit and deck design to ensure that our helmsmen and women have line-of-sight to the front of the boat and can see the sails, the wind conditions and sea state.

“This is all part of the exciting design challenge that entry into The Ocean Race 2022-23 has brought us. It keeps the Race true to its DNA which is sailors helming their boats around the world,” he added.

Photo credits: Amory Ross | 11th Hour Racing

We started this new design process in June 2019 and are now at the stage of having a completed hull with the deck structure currently underway at CDK Technologies.

Armand de Jacquelot, is our Project Engineer for this new build, at MerConcept, “One of the interesting challenges for us was to merge the two cultures: the single-handed French one with The Ocean Race. The 11th Hour Racing Team boat will be the first IMOCA 60 of this generation; that’s an exciting situation but also brings a lot of questions.

“We have spent maybe three times the normal time working on the answer to some of these questions like the cockpit configuration. We built a full-scale mock-up in the yard so the Team could come and ‘play’ inside the boat. We’ve changed it three times and pivoted from one concept to another. It’s been quite a tough job to achieve the answers and to find a solution for this cockpit, the livability and the requirement to be driving nearly all the time, but I believe we have done it successfully.”

Over the course of the build, our sustainability team, including a team member on-site in France, is measuring and evaluating the environmental impact of the entire build process, while also researching alternative materials and techniques including the use of flax in low weight-bearing structures in the boat. This is part of our overall ambition to leave a positive impact on the environment at the end of the campaign.

All these sustainability learnings, driven by  Damian Foxall  and  Amy Munro , will identify key impact hotspots through life cycle assessment. We are working with the IMOCA Class to develop and set sustainability standards for future builds and will be publishing and sharing resources with the maritime industry and sailing community to encourage the implementation of sustainability plans.

Damian shared a little more about these learnings, “From the outset as a Team we decided we wanted to have a neutral impact on the environment, but doing less bad is not good enough. We want to make all our areas of operation and influence net positive and regenerative.”

Header image credit: Amory Ross | 11th Hour Racing

IMOCA 60 – The next generation of hydrofoil sailboats

Top speed: current record speed is 38.5 knots foiling: yes production cost for a new boat amounts to ~4.7 million euros interior: two bunks and space for 5 crew members.

IMOCA stands for International Monohull Open Class Association. IMOCA 60 sailing boats are an ‘open class’ which means that designers can modify the design of the boat within certain limitations. The boat can be no longer than 60 feet in length, 4.5 meters draught and a maximum mast height of 29 meters above the waterline.

IMOCA 60 Charal

Charal is the next generation foiling sailboat designed by VPLP. It has gained a lot of attention due to its innovative foil design, build from the ground up. Many other boats in this class have been retrofitted with foils since it has long been uncertain if foils are reliable for different kinds of winds, experienced in an around the world competition.

In the latest Vendée Globe competition, all top 3 boats in the race had the VPLP-Verdier fooling design, which proved that this is the future of the class.

IMOCA 60 Hugo Boss

As with the Charal, the boat uses the next generation foiling configuration and designed by VPLP in partnership with Alex Thomson. This boat is constructed entirely in carbon fiber and equipped with the latest technology. The sailing boat’s beam is reduced to a minimum and the forward section was designed to be more aero-hydrodynamic, this boat is truly built for speed. The boat holds the current speed record of 38.5 knots.

IMOCA 60 Malizia II

The boat is designed by VPLP and Guillaume Verdier and built at the Multiplast yard. This is the sailing boat that transported the climate activist Greta Thunberg across the Atlantic.  The boat is equipped with a high-volume bow which enhances the speed of the boat by making her more lightweight.

The Ocean Race

In the upcoming Ocean Race, IMOCA 60 boats have been invited to participate in the competition. Based on the success of the next generation foiling monohulled boats in the Vendée Globe competition, this will be an exciting new change in the Ocean Race vs the traditional VO65 boats used in the past edition of the Volvo Ocean Race.   

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https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en

New Challenges for a New IMOCA 60

• By Mark Chisnell - 11th Hour Racing
• Updated: September 13, 2021

A little over 20 years ago, Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm and three crew blasted across the Atlantic on the front edge of a winter storm, and set a new monohull record for the New York to Lizard crossing: 8 days 20 hours and 56 minutes. They did it in Stamm’s IMOCA 60, beating a record that had been held by Bob Miller’s superyacht Mari Cha III by more than four hours. At 44.7m length overall, Mari Cha was almost two and a half times longer than the IMOCA 60 and the new record spoke volumes for the future.

A possible future: an IMOCA 60 with four crew could have been the replacement for the aging Whitbread 60, the boat then used for the Volvo Ocean Race. The IMOCA 60 could have slashed crew numbers (and therefore cost) and ramped up performance and spectacle. Surely this new record was the harbinger for a remarkable future for offshore racing? Well, it’s taken 20 years, but the future is finally here, with the launch of 11th Hour Racing Team’s new IMOCA 60 – the first to be purpose-built for a four or five-person crew. Personally, I can’t wait to see what she can do – and not just on the water. This boat was built with more than just speed in mind.

“The primary objective of 11th Hour Racing is to change the narrative around sustainability in the marine and maritime industries, and in everyday life. We start the conversation with the springboard of competitive professional sailing, then provide concrete solutions or demonstrations of achievable success, in the hope of alleviating some of what can be a daunting proposition to engage with from zero.”

Those are the words of Rob MacMillan, co-founder and President of 11th Hour Racing, the Newport, Rhode Island based organization which harnesses the power of sport to inspire ocean health initiatives, and sponsors 11th Hour Racing Team. The IMOCA 60 is now used in the planet’s most popular and most visible offshore sailboat races; the fully-crewed Ocean Race (heir to the Volvo Ocean Race), the double-handed Transat Jacques Vabre and the solo Route du Rhum and Vendée Globe. Millions of people watch these races, and that means millions can be impacted by the message of 11th Hour Racing.

Unfortunately, building a boat to the current IMOCA 60 rule has significant challenges when sustainability is your avowed goal. “The carbon is not sustainable, and the resin we use is not sustainable…. a carbon boat made out of pre-preg epoxy is not fantastic in this respect,” said Guillaume Verdier, the project’s naval architect, reflecting on the challenge facing the Team.

“I’d be very enthusiastic,” Verdier continued, “to try to design a boat that is really more sustainable and competitive. If I were free to write a rule, if I was asked to make a wooden Open 60, I promise you it would not be a piece of rubbish. It would be hard to compete [with existing boats]. It would need everybody to have a wooden boat, but…we’ll find the tricks, I tell you. If it was to be specified, we’ll find the tricks. Wood is a beautiful way [to go].”

“Make no mistake, we have to make radical changes to how we work: business as usual is no longer an option,” added Damian Foxall, 11th Hour Racing Team’s Sustainability Program Manager and a previous winner of the Volvo Ocean Race. “There is an urgent need for the entire marine industry to align to the Paris Agreement; a 50-percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and net zero by 2050. This requires a paradigm shift in how and why we build and race boats; a new approach to sailing events and the very structure of our sport.”

After all, the sport of sailing is what we, the participants, say that it is; the boats, the racecourses, the materials used. But while wood would be a vastly more sustainable material, the IMOCA 60 rule currently allows carbon and so, if you want to win races, that’s what you need to build in. This is a fact that Mark Towill, the Team’s CEO is very conscious of: “With the support of our sponsor, our philosophy around the build of our new IMOCA 60 is to construct a competitive boat while working with the marine industry to develop more sustainable solutions and innovative approaches to the way that we build boats. We’ve already seen changes to the IMOCA Class rules including favoring the use of bio-sourced materials for non-structural parts and introducing life cycle assessments for the construction of all new boats, which is a great start and we look forward to working with more race organizers, class owners and teams to push this agenda further. We hope that what we develop and learn with our partners can then be used as a springboard, not only within grand-prix racing, but across the sector as a whole.”

“We’re only going to be able to do that [50% reduction] with real collaboration, making sure that we’re working in targeted areas and working together,” said Sustainability Officer Amy Munro, an oceanographer by training who works with Foxall. Together they implement sustainability measures throughout all operational elements of the Team. The goals have been set by international agreements (currently the 2015 Paris climate agreement). “The UN Sustainable Development Goals are not just for the marine industry, it’s everyone who needs to get to that point… And a lot of countries have ratified those targets. So, it’s going to involve not just offsets but really looking at how we’re making things and how we can radically rethink to reduce our footprint,” added Munro.

Public opinion is inexorably shifting and sailing needs to shift with it. It may not be long before a sport that flouts climate targets will find itself as handicapped commercially as those that were – in an earlier era – reliant on tobacco sponsorship when public opinion and lawmakers turned against it. Sailing can do more than just keep up though, as Rob MacMillan explained. “The Ocean Race is an opportunity to carry this narrative message across the world and engage on local terms with many different communities. Especially now with the introduction of the IMOCA fleet into The Ocean Race, there is an exciting development opportunity as well, where teams can embed sustainable choices from day one.”

Changing the narrative is going to require more than just building a boat in the most sustainable way possible – that boat is also going to have to be successful in a harsh and highly competitive environment. To put it brutally; no one will be listening to the message if the boat is slow. So, in the first two stories in this three-part series we’ll look at how the Team went about designing a fast boat. Then we’ll turn, in the third article, to the challenge that the Team faced building it as sustainably as possible.

Bearing much of the weight of the responsibility for these twin goals are two men, the first of which is 11th Hour Racing Team’s skipper Charlie Enright, who told me; “For better or worse, the design and build process stops and starts with me.” Enright grew up sailing in Bristol, Rhode Island, U.S., and the sport runs in his family; his grandfather was a boat builder. He followed a path through junior sailing, interscholastic sailing, and then got into offshore racing through Roy Disney’s Morning Light project and, “never turned back. We did a lot of our own sailing in 2011, which is what introduced me to The Ocean Race. Mark [Towill] and I have done two laps of the planet now, and are very much looking forward to our third.”

The second person in the hot seat is the naval architect commissioned to come up with the design of the team’s new IMOCA 60, Guillaume Verdier. If you follow the French offshore scene then you may well know all about Verdier’s Vendée Globe-winning IMOCA designs, but if you don’t then you probably know of his collaboration with Team New Zealand over the last three America’s Cup campaigns, two of which they have won. After studying naval architecture at Southampton and Copenhagen Universities, Verdier joined Groupe Finot, designing Open 60s when he was 27 years old. He worked on the boat in which Michel Desjoyeaux won the Vendée Globe, before going out on his own and modifying PRB for Vincent Riou, who also then went and won the Vendée Globe.

There were lots more winners, until recently designed in collaboration with another famous French design office, VPLP. Both François Gabart’s Macif, Vendée Globe winner in 2012-13, and Armel Le Cléach’s Banque Populaire, which won in 2016-17, were designed in collaboration with VPLP. “Yannick Bestaven was the one that won the last Vendée Globe, [that] was a boat we did with VPLP, but Apivia [sailed to second place by Charlie Dalin] is a boat I designed on my own,” said Verdier.

It was Verdier and VPLP that got the IMOCA 60s foiling, and the experience that Verdier gained in the last three America’s Cups (all of which have featured foiling boats) has played into his hands as the IMOCA 60 rules have continued to allow foiling to develop. There are very few yachts that are built with no constraints, and for racing boats the primary parameters are the rules that define the type of boat. The IMOCA Class Rule started out simply enough back in the mid-1980s, but these days the designer of a new IMOCA 60 faces significant constraints.

There are obvious limits, like hull draft and length, along with an air draft and an overall length that includes the bowsprit. There are also one-design elements; a mast and keel fin that limit the amount of righting moment the boat can develop, so there’s a point beyond which more power will simply break the boat. There are also limits on appendages, water ballast and canting keels along with all important self-righting tests. So, it would have been simple enough to discourage foiling with a rule change if that’s what the rule makers had wanted. This hasn’t happened, but nor has it been encouraged by allowing elevators on the rudders. While these add complexity and cost, Verdier feels they would significantly increase the boat’s fitness for purpose and safety.

“The fact that you don’t have the elevators on the back of the boat is making the boat very brutal in deceleration. It’s an incredible damper [shock absorber] to have an elevator on the rudder. Maybe draggy sometimes, but it is the safety element…” The extra control the elevator provides for the trim angle of the boat would make it safer.

“I tried to explain that to the IMOCA but they didn’t vote for [it]. That’s the way it goes. I’m not a good lobbyist,” he explained, with a wry smile. All these rules provide a hard edge to the design envelope, while all the boats built – particularly the 14 foiling boats from the past two Vendée Globe races – provide a softer envelope, a wealth of knowledge on what works and what does not. There is no shortage of history to draw on, but in one important respect, the new 11th Hour Racing Team boat is a very different one to all that have gone before because it was designed for a crew, and not just for solo sailing. A fully-crewed boat can be pushed much harder, so it needs to be stronger. There needs to be more space to live and different systems to allow the extra hands to work at sailing the boat.

Verdier has an edge on the competition in thinking about these issues. The first time I met him was in Lisbon, when the Volvo Ocean Race design team that he led were working on the Super 60, the brainchild of then-CEO Mark Turner. “When Mark Turner decided to make a new kind of boat after the Volvo Ocean 65, he made a giant competition,” Verdier explained. “We won that one, and started working with Nick Bice, Neil Cox and Mark Turner on this Super 60 program, and right away it was like an Open 60 that was adaptable to a group of five people on board. That’s where we are more or less today with this boat for The Ocean Race.”

When Verdier says ‘we won that one’ he’s referring to the team of people that he has gathered around him since he first went out on his own. “The original people are still here. It grew up a little bit, but we are more or less five or six in France.” The collaborators on this particular boat (and it varies from project to project) were Hervé Penfornis in project management, Romaric Neyhousser, designer, Véronique Soulé and Romain Garo doing computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Morgane Schlumberger working on structures and stability, Loic Goepfert working on performance and design and Jeremy Palmer working on structures. “And there’s the Pure Design and Engineering office for structural calculations in New Zealand. Matrix Applied Computing is also in New Zealand, doing the double check of the structure I’m doing for the foils,” added Verdier.

The team has always worked in a way that a lot more of us are now familiar with, thanks to Covid-19. “I sign the contract and so on, and it’s my name and I take the risk, but all these guys have their own design studio, in a way, like me, and they all accept to collaborate with me. It’s a very nice setup we have and very rare, where people are all independent. We all work from home. There’s no office. You don’t open the door of my office, see a secretary and 20 people working. Everyone is on their own, but we collaborate at a distance.”

This is a lot more sustainable way of working than maintaining a big design studio and getting everyone to travel there every day. The team also understood that the digital design process has its own environmental impact. “The thing we did on this project, and it has been the first time I’ve seen it, is to fully evaluate the carbon footprint right from the beginning, including the computer time we used for the process,” said Guillaume Verdier. “It’s not easy to work out how much time we spend, how many machines we have, how many clusters we use and so on, but we did better on this one.”

“There’s a growing impact of the digital sector worldwide,” pointed out Damian Foxall, “estimated at 3.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions or the equivalent of the entire aviation industry. More importantly, the global impact of digital use is set to increase by up to 14% by 2040, underlining the importance of understanding these impacts and using these tools and the associated energy needed responsibly.”

Simulator Training

One of the first problems that Verdier and his team had to tackle was the one big difference between the Super 60, and the IMOCA 60 that they were now designing for a full crew. “The Super 60 originally was designed to have elevators on the rudder,” said Verdier. “Again, I often say when you don’t have the elevator on the rudder, it’s a bit like trying to make your plane fly without the tail wing, which is very difficult.” The fundamental instability that this produces in the boat’s balance had to be resolved in other ways. Verdier and his team have built up a significant toolset to apply to the problem, most notably the development of simulation codes. “A boat is a lot more complex than a plane though,” said Verdier, “because it’s got to go through an incredible change in pitch, an incredible change in displacement through the waves. It’s jumping waves and going down the troughs. It’s very unsteady. A plane is much steadier. It’s much easier to make a simulation for a plane or a car.”

It’s a double whammy really, not only is an IMOCA 60 in the Southern Ocean harder to simulate than a plane, it’s also less controllable without the rudder elevators. “We are progressing,” continued Verdier. “We have a simulator, and we can train on the simulator. We can add waves, but you always keep in mind that if the simulator is not answering the question perfectly, then reality is still driving the bus, you know? It should not be the tool that drives the bus, but your understanding of the environment. That has always been our job. Otherwise we’d be replaced by machines.”

Charlie Enright had the same take on the problem. “We have used the simulator a lot in the development program for the boat. The simulator’s definitely a useful tool because it highlights areas you might not otherwise be thinking about, and it allows you to make a lot of changes rapidly in a cost-effective way. It points the arrow toward things that could be investigated further. That said, it’s a lot easier to simulate flat water behind Rangitoto than it is the waves of the Southern Ocean, so it’s a constant back and forth between sailor input and the naval architecture simulation tools. It’s definitely a give and take, because we feel like we have the smartest guys in the world helping us design this boat, but at the same time, no two waves are the same. So, the sailor input is very important, and I feel like we’ve struck that balance well to date.”

Striking that balance has led to some innovative solutions to the performance challenge, with a new look to the bow shape and foils, the aerodynamic treatment of the hull and the sail handling solutions just some of the more obvious changes. We will look at all these and much more in the second part of this three-part series.

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VIDEO: Inside an IMOCA 60

Published on January 10th, 2023 by Editor -->

The Ocean Race (formerly Volvo Ocean Race and Whitbread Round the World Race) will have the high-performance, foiling, IMOCA 60 class when the 14th edition begins January 15, 2023. Matt Sheahan tours a newly launched boat, noting how the fully crewed IMOCA 60s are new territory.

“While some of the five teams have had the luxury of testing, training and generally getting their heads around how things work with five aboard a boat originally designed for one, most haven’t,” noted Sheahan.

“One of the latest generation of IMOCA60s is Boris Herrmann’s Malizia, and shortly after the boat had been launched, crew member Will Harris gave me the full tour. It was fascinating and highlighted just how different the new boats are to sail.

“Plus, Will also explained some of the thinking behind Malizia’s extraordinary shape.”

Video uploaded Jan 10, 2023.

Race details – Route – Teams – Facebook

The Ocean Race 2022-23 Race Schedule: Alicante, Spain – Leg 1 start: January 15, 2023 Cabo Verde – ETA: January 22; Leg 2 start: January 25 Cape Town, South Africa – ETA: February 9; Leg 3 start: February 26 or 27 (TBC) Itajaí, Brazil – ETA: April 1; Leg 4 start: April 23 Newport, RI, USA – ETA: May 10; Leg 5 start: May 21 Aarhus, Denmark – ETA: May 30; Leg 6 start: June 8 Kiel, Germany (Fly-By) – June 9 The Hague, The Netherlands – ETA: June 11; Leg 7 start: June 15 Genova, Italy – The Grand Finale – ETA: June 25, 2023; Final In-Port Race: July 1, 2023

The Ocean Race (formerly Volvo Ocean Race and Whitbread Round the World Race) was initially to be raced in two classes of boats: the high-performance, foiling, IMOCA 60 class and the one-design VO65 class which has been used for the last two editions of the race.

However, only the IMOCAs will be racing round the world while the VO65s will race in The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint which competes in Legs 1, 6, and 7 of The Ocean Race course.

Additionally, The Ocean Race also features the In-Port Series with races at seven of the course’s stopover cities around the world which allow local fans to get up close and personal to the teams as they battle it out around a short inshore course.

Although in-port races do not count towards a team’s overall points score, they do play an important part in the overall rankings as the In-Port Race Series standings are used to break any points ties that occur during the race around the world.

The 14th edition of The Ocean Race was originally planned for 2021-22 but was postponed one year due to the pandemic, with the first leg starting on January 15, 2023.

Tags: IMOCA , Matthew Sheahan , PlanetSail , The Ocean Race

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The Ocean Race Europe 2025 will start from Kiel, Germany

Organisers of The Ocean Race have confirmed Kiel.Sailing.City as the host of the start of The Ocean Race Europe during a press conference in Kiel on Wednesday morning. The event is scheduled to start on 10 August, 2025.

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Charal: On board the radical IMOCA 60 that takes foiling to the next level

• Helen Fretter
• July 22, 2019

Charal is a next-generation foiling IMOCA 60, designed by VPLP and newly launched for solo skipper Jeremie Beyou

In St Malo for the start of the Route du Rhum in early November , every inch of the IMOCA 60 pontoons was packed with fans trying to get a close up look at the huge variety of designs taking part.

But one boat needed serious crowd control around it – Charal , the aggressively styled foiling design launched just a couple of months earlier. The scale of Charal ’s foils alone would have drawn attention, but videos of Beyou test sailing his new boat literally leaping from the water made Charal a hot topic in St Malo. We talked to designer Vincent Lauriot-Prévost of VPLP about the concepts and technology behind it.

Charal is not just the newest IMOCA 60, she marks a ‘next generation’ step for the class because she is the first IMOCA 60 designed entirely around the foils.

Most of the IMOCA 60s carrying foils in the 2016 cycle were retrofitted with them. Even those that were built anew were designed to be competitive without the foils ( Alex Thomson ’s Vendée Globe 2nd place after shearing the starboard foil less than two weeks into the race proving the sense of this policy). In truth, nobody really knew if the foils would be reliable and effective across enough of the wind ranges experienced in a round the world solo race.

“In the last edition of the Vendée we proved foils on the conventional boats, which were on boats designed for power and righting moment,” explains Vincent Lauriot-Prévost.

The results of the last Vendée Globe: 1st Banque Populaire , 2nd Hugo Boss , Maitre Coq 3rd, all VPLP-Verdier foiling designs, proved conclusively that this was the future of the class. So for Charal , VPLP took a different approach.

Article continues below…

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Along a three-mile start line off St Malo, 123 boats set off on the 40th Route du Rhum singlehanded transatlantic race…

“We have decided to make the new boat as a pure foiler. Instead of looking for a powerful hull we are looking for a less draggy hull, taking into account that the foils are going to be the element that gives the power.”

This means a big shift from trying to balance weight reduction and power, to working towards a lightweight and minimum drag hull form. One of the challenges has been that the new generation foil packages – longer foils, and casings that are stronger and more complex – come with a weight increase.

“We know that all-in the package of the new foils, including the reinforcement of the hull and so on, are just about half a tonne extra weight [over the last generation foils],” explains Lauriot-Prévost. “So how can we make the boat half a tonne lighter to compensate for this?”

Charal can be up on her foils in just 15 knots of wind. Photo: Damien Meyer / AFP / Getty Images

Hull volume has been reduced wherever possible, retaining it forward and amidships but cutting away great angular sections of bow and topsides, then sloping down to a low transom to create what Lauriot-Prévost describes as ‘a very bumpy sheer’.

Overall, the changes are significant and achieving them while remaining within the IMOCA stability rule was a challenge. “The hull is completely different. It’s a narrower waterline – we don’t want to be a cigar, but we accept to lose 15-20% of righting moment to be within the stability rule,” explains Lauriot-Prévost.

During the design process they discussed with the Charal team whether they wanted the boat to remain competitive even if they lost a foil (as did Thomson). The decision was made that the boat would not be have enough power to be seriously competitive in non-foiling mode – although it would be stable enough to be safe.

The scale of Charal ’s foils is impressive – they are wider than any other boat’s so far, with a long shaft and tip and an angled elbow. They are also surprisingly thick. The trade-off for the increased foil size and power is that they cannot both be retracted simultaneously.

The size of Charal ’s foils mean that they cannot both be raised at the same time

“We accept [we can’t] have them fully up at the same time, because we want them big. We want to create the righting moment as far out of the hull as possible, and we want a foil which creates vertical lift but which creates side force at the same time,” says Lauriot-Prévost. The shaft creates vertical force, while the oversized tip generates lateral and vertical forces.

The other key difference is that these latest generation foils have adjustable rake, using bearings fore and aft, which allow Beyou to alter the angle of attack by 5°.

How frequently the rake will be adjusted remains something to be explored but, says Lauriot-Prévost: “You can imagine maybe that instead of playing with sail sheets you play with the foil controls, and tune the boat to the reaction in the water more than the reaction of the sail forces.”

There is one significant limitation to the power even the latest generation IMOCA 60 can generate: the class-restricted rig. “There is one fuse on the boat, which is the mast,” explains Lauriot-Prévost. “The mast has been designed for [loads of] 32 tonne metres (Tm) and fully foiled, fully canted, fully raked and fully ballasted we are more 43-45Tm.”

Finding the limits

The pedestal grinder is placed right in the centre of the pit area for direct connection to winches

To monitor these loads, Charal is covered with fibreoptic sensors; five per foil with additional sensors in the foil rake adjustment bearings, as well as on the outriggers and backstay.

“During the trials it happened several times that we had alarms, because we were overloaded compared to the designed load,” says Lauriot-Prévost.

Given that potential, the adoption of the IMOCA 60 class by the Volvo Ocean Race will be a serious test of restraint. “That’s a really strong discussion that we had with the Volvo teams, because the Volvo teams have not got the same approach as a single-handed sailor, and when they push, they push!”

The other limiting factor is of course the human on board. As with any IMOCA 60, Charal has been customised around her skipper, the hugely experienced Jérémie Beyou, and his personal preferences.

“One thing which is evident on this boat is that Jérémie doesn’t want to stack the sails inside,” says Lauriot-Prévost. To make moving the sails on deck easier, there is a sloped scoop abaft the cockpit.

The cockpit is sheltered by a fixed cuddy made with Mylar film windows rather than a retractable coachroof – sliding components would be heavier. A pedestal grinder is placed under the cuddy, right in the middle of the pit.

To keep weight low all the lines coming from the bow or mast base are led through two tunnels to the pit area. The pit area has four in-line winches, directly connected to the pedestal for the easiest transmission system possible, with no gearbox or T-junctions necessary. This offers big savings in weight and complexity, but does make for a very compact working area.

The 2018 Route du Rhum was Beyou’s first racing test for Charal – he retired with steering issues. Photo: Charal Sailing Team

“You do end up with a cockpit that is not designed for crewed sailing, at all!” points out Lauriot-Prévost. Down below was out of bounds – the inner workings of Charal’s foil controls are too new to be shared.

Many of the IMOCA skippers have talked about wearing helmets or body armour on the new foiling 60s, so extreme is the motion. Was protecting the skipper a factor in the design?

“It’s going to be the priority before the start of the Vendée,” says Lauriot-Prévost, “But Jérémie needs to find out where it is important to protect. He needs to get a bit bruised first!”

Specification

LOA: 18.29m (60ft 0in) Beam: 5.60m (18ft 5in) Draught: 4.50m (14ft 9in) Displacement: 7.40 tonnes Sail area upwind: 300m² (3,229ft²) Sail area downwind: 600m² (6,458ft²)

First published in the Jan 2019 edition of Yaching World – Charal is due to take part in next month’s Rolex Fastnet Race .

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looks like hard work! —

This 32,000-mile ocean race has yachts doing research along the way, the yachts will sample ocean gases and microplastic levels along their route..

Jonathan M. Gitlin - Jan 23, 2023 5:20 pm UTC

Just over a week ago, one of the world's most grueling races got underway from Spain. Eleven teams, including five International Monohull Open Class Association (IMOCA)-class racing yachts, departed Alicante in Spain for the first leg of a 32,000-nautical-mile (60,000-km) route that includes a 12,750-nautical-mile stretch between South Africa and Brazil through the Southern Ocean. The crews have little in the way of creature comforts beyond freeze-dried meals and a bucket for a bathroom. Along the way, the boats will collect scientific data on the state of our oceans, from dissolved gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide to microplastics.

IMOCA-class boats are 60 feet (18.3 m) long and feature a single hull made from carbon fiber. In addition to sails, the yachts have retractable foils that lift the hull out of the water above 18 knots (33 km/h) and allow a top speed of 35 knots (65 km/h) or more. Designers have some freedom with the hull and sail shape, but everyone has to use the same design of masts, booms, and static rigging.

Mālama is one such boat, and it's crewed by the 11th Hour Racing team. In addition to collecting data on climate change, the team worked to minimize the carbon impact of building the yacht itself , experimenting where allowed with lightweight, sustainable materials like balsa or composites made from flax. "I like to think of where can we use renewables that actually adds performance to the program," said Simon Fisher, navigator for the 11th Hour team.

"The renewable energy we use on board is a good example of that," Fisher explained, referring to Mālama's solar panels, which charge its 48 V battery and save a lot of weight versus the more traditional approach of a diesel generator and its required fuel. "That's a considerable weight saving, and we're always chasing everything down to the last gram," he said.

"If you come on board the boat and looked at a lot of the non-structural elements, things like engine covers, which traditionally would be made out of carbon, are now done in flax and bioresins and all that sort of stuff. And we've actually done that in the build process. We took the time to build some samples and compare weights and durability," Fisher said.

Much of that is detailed in 11th Hour's sustainable design and build report (PDF), which describes "the amount of detail that went into measuring absolutely everything," Fisher told Ars. "So every element that went into the boat—what it was made from, the energy use, where things are sourced from, all of that—has been incredibly well-documented." As such, the team hopes the data can be useful to the rest of the industry.

• Carbon fiber is very energy-intensive because it needs to be cured in an autoclave under heat and pressure. Amory Ross / 11th Hour Racing
• Panels made using flax and power ribs, alternative boat building materials. Amory Ross / 11th Hour Racing

The IMOCA rules require boat-builders to use energy-intensive carbon fiber as the main material thanks to its high strength and light weight. But here and there, 11th Hour found ways to reduce its carbon impact. Reusing carbon fiber molds, for example, saved more than 170 metric tons of CO 2 from the boat's footprint. "There's been some really good and actually surprisingly simple lessons that came out of it. One of the biggest savings in carbon footprint we've made is that the whole boat was built on renewable energy. So the boatyard that the boat was built on was on a renewable energy tariff, and that's like half the carbon footprint," Fisher said.

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€199,000

VAT excluded

• Reference ID 660
• Builder IMOCA
• Humphreys / Owen Clarke design
• Location Spain
• Engine type Single
• L.O.A. (mtr) 18.28
• Beam (mtr) 5.20
• Draft (mtr) 4.50
• Displacement (Kg) 8500
• Material Composite
• Engine LOMBARDINI (2020)

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Yacht description.

For sale after a complete refit and preparation for Vendée 2020/2021. Ex Kingfisher - 2000 Owen Clarke design built at Marten Yachts in NZ. Major awards including 7 world tours (VG 2020, 2016, 2004, 2000 and BWR 2007, 2010, 2014)

Ideal and very reliable boat for a new Vendée Globe 2024 project. Boat complete with lots of spare material. Easy to use

Check ups/tests

• Ultrasonic test + survey Futures Fibers (Done by David Barnaby)
• FIX mast 7/8 in carbon 3 spreaders levels, length: 26,5m - 416 Kg
• Standing rigging: Future Fibers: PBO 2020, mast surveyed in June 2020
• Ultrasound special test and validity for high performance racing

Refit/renewal/maintenance 2020/2021

• New Lombardini engine
• Ballast modifications
• Cockpit modification
• Removal of old daggerboards
• Keel, jacks, hydraulics
• Latest generation electronics B&G H5000
• Complete sanding of the boat and new painting
• Substantial weight gain (about 800kg)
• Quantum Sails 2020 sail set (MS, J1,5, J2, J3, FR0, A5)
• 2020 Imoca Class Certificate
• PBO 2020 rigging
• Mastervolt lithium batteries
• Hydrogenerators
• Solbian Solar Panels
• Ultrasonic mast and boom test June 2020
• Evolutions still possible with a consequent gain in performance (new mast, angled daggerboards/foils, bow, etc.).

CONSTRUCTION :

• Hull: Epoxy Carbon Nomex and Airex core sandwich
• Superstructure: Epoxy Carbon Nomex and Airex core sandwich
• Deck: Epoxy Carbon Nomex and Airex core sandwich
• Hull: Grey / Blue
• Superstructure: Grey / Blue
• 29m Southern Spars carbon mast
• Carbon boom
• Standing rigging: PBO (Future Fibers)
• Runnig rigging: LANCELIN and MAFFIOLI
• Furlers: Profurl 
• Main Genoa Solent (QUANTUM)
• Jib Staysail
• A2 -A3 Fractional
• Main North Sails 3DL
• J2 North Sails
• A5 North Sails
• Code 0 Incidences
• A2 Incidences
• J3 Incidences
• J1 North Sails
• A5 incidences
• Storm sail Incidences

Accommodations

• Nav station with all the electronics near by
• 4 single bunks
• Heater: Webasto
• Small galley with sink  and gas burner stove
• Water Tanks
• Bilge pumps
• Water maker Katadyn 

Deck and Cockpit

• HARKEN winches, 5x
• 1 pedestal 
• SPINLOCK jammers 
• Full IMOCA jauge mooring
• Spare anchor + chain and rope
• 2x Alternator
• 1 x 100 Amp MEGA LIGHT Gel for engines start, AGM 2020
• 2 x 170 Amp MEGA LIGHT Gel for service, Lithium Mastervolt 2020
• Hydrogenerator X2
• Battery charger mastervolt
• LOMBARDINI 30 HP (2020)
• 7,5 knots cruising speed
• Consumption: 4L/hrs
• Saildrive and racing propeller
• Fuel Tanks: 150 L

Electronics and Navigational Gear

B&G H5000

• Self-steering: 3 autopilots
• Gyrocompass: B&G
• AIS Class B: B&G
• Computer: one computer system with Adrena Software, one for communications
• Screens: 17"
• Iridium phone
• VHF radio: B&G
• meteo: VION barometer
• GPS: B&G
• 1 container

Company offers the details of this vessel in good faith but cannot guarantee or warrant the accuracy of this information nor warrant the condition of the vessel. A buyer should instruct his agents, or his surveyors, to investigate such details as the buyer desires validated. This vessel is offered subject to prior sale, price change, or withdrawal without notice.

Contact Details

• Name Site Broker | Racing-Yachts.com
• Email [email protected]
• Phone 1234567
• Instagram -

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• Displacement (Kg): 11522
• Beam (mtr): 5.00
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• Horsepower: 75 hp

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• Beam (mtr): 3.62
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• Horsepower: 40 hp

July 1, 2023 - 4 PM CET

Genoa In-Port race starts in

two-boat racing program

Two IMOCA 60s, four co-skippers and thousands of miles to be sailed as 11th Hour Racing Team build-up to The Ocean Race 2022-23.

IMOCA 60 Development class

Traditionally designed for single- or double-handed sailing, the IMOCA 60 Open Class offers designers the freedom to design boats as light as possible to favor speed, while also being solid enough to withstand the worst possible ocean conditions. With the introduction of foils in 2015, the Class saw a dramatic leap in performance and speed. The foils enable the boat to skim over the surface of the water, reducing resistance and enabling quick acceleration.

For the first time in The Ocean Race’s 48-year history, the round the world race is open to IMOCA 60s, allowing team entries with a four-person racing configuration. After competing in two editions of The Ocean Race on the one-design VO65s, 11th Hour Racing Team co-founders, Charlie Enright and Mark Towill have embraced the challenge to build the very first IMOCA 60 specifically commissioned for a fully crewed entry in the next edition of the race.

IMOCA 60 ALAKA’I

One of the first foiling IMOCA 60s on the sailing scene, Alaka’I was previously known as Hugo Boss and came second in the 2016-17 Vendée Globe, skippered by Alex Thomson. We have been sailing on this boat since September 2019, when the Team came third in the Défi Azimut, swiftly followed by a fourth place in the Transat Jacques Vabre.

About the Boat

IMOCA 60 MĀlama

Our brand new state-of-the-art IMOCA 60 built by CDK Technologies is in the final stages of construction in Brittany, France. Designed by Guillaume Verdier’s studio, with performance analysis by François Gabart’s MerConcept, this is the first IMOCA 60 designed and built for crewed offshore racing. Our new IMOCA 60 is set to hit the water in August 2021.

Racing Schedule

From short-handed, short-course racing in the Atlantic to fully crewed racing around the World, learn more about the Team’s racing plans for 2021 and beyond.

Related News

June 18, 2023

11TH HOUR RACING TEAM HAS LEFT THE HAGUE: RACE NOW ON TO GET TO GENOA IN TIME FOR IN-PORT RACE

The Boat, The Ocean Race, The Team

11TH HOUR RACING TEAM UNVEILS PLANS TO DELIVER BOAT TO GENOA: ANTICIPATED ARRIVAL IN TIME FOR IN-PORT RACE

Sailing, The Boat, The Ocean Race

June 15, 2023

DISASTER AT START OF LEG 7 OF THE OCEAN RACE FOR 11TH HOUR RACING TEAM: BOAT HIT BY COMPETITOR, RETURNS TO DOCK

Privacy overview.

EMIRA – IMOCA 60 RACING YACHT

Solo sailing can be lonely at times, & Scott wanted to have his family close to him while he is alone at sea.

The foredeck of our boat displays in bright red paint her number, the number 80, representing the birth year of Scott’s wife. Our boat is named EMIRA after Scott’s children Emma and Keira. EMRA also means leader or princess, which is very fitting for a raceboat!

Boat Facts & Stats:

The 60 foot long IMOCA racing yachts are among the fastest, most modern monohulls in the world. They are built using composite materials, which makes them as light as possible, yet stable enough to withstand even the harshest conditions at sea. Because the class is “open”, designers have the freedom to constantly push boundaries, striving to make the fastest craft possible within the given parameter and dimension restrictions. IMOCA Open 60s are the Formula One of the seas. They are the designated yacht for the IMOCA Globe Series and the Vendée Globe non-stop solo race around the world.

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